


Legacy (or Five Lessons Hawkeye Taught Hawkeye)

by scribblemyname



Series: Legacy [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: 5 Things, Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 03:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3554153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's her protege and she's his. According to the Hawkeyes anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legacy (or Five Lessons Hawkeye Taught Hawkeye)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glinda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/gifts).



> So before the new adorable "not your protege" line, there are comics canon quotes heading both directions with shameless indications they both consider themselves equals and mentors/mentees to each other. As usual, I ran away with that.
> 
> Tons of thanks to my temporarily unnamed reader [ETA: geckoholic] for helping bounce ideas around and for the beta.

1

"Why aren't you making new arrowheads?" Kate asked as she stared at the mess on his coffee table in a small amount of disgust.

Clint was always making new messes, and he'd been keeping the unsalvageable—from Christmas lights to broken arrowheads—probably for longer than she'd been alive.

But he just gave her that furrowed brow look of slight incredulousness, like she was overlooking the depths of his genius.

"Why make new ones when I can fix these?" he asked. "Besides, I have some more from Tony around here somewhere." He shrugged. Clint mostly made his own: the useful, the fun, the ridiculous. She would never forget his USB arrow. Ever.

Kate picked up the shattered remains of a head that would never have structural integrity again, no matter how much gorilla glue he used.

He snatched them back from her. "You got to use your own broken pieces, Katie-Kate. Clean up your own messes."

"Take responsibility for every shot," she finished, echoing something he'd told her before.

Clint shrugged, gave her that sideways look that always made her think he was waiting for someone to hurt him. If she said the wrong thing, she probably would.

She sighed and sat down. "These we toss." She folded her fingers over his. "But we'll fix the rest. I'll help you make some new ones."

He let her take the shattered pieces out of his hand and give him an arrow they could actually fix.

2

"I'm not running away!" he yelled back at her.

Kate glared at him, clearly livid and disbelief sketched across her features. "Looks that way to me, Hawkeye," she spat.

And the thing about it was, she was right. She was always right. She was right to call him out on it when he impersonated Cap and right to call him out every time he intended to take off for the betterment and protection of his friends' lives. But for once in her life, why couldn't she be wrong?

Clint dropped his elbows to the counter and scrubbed his face with his hands. "I'm not running. I'm just helping out a friend."

She was on the other side of the counter, in his face so he couldn't ignore her by being deaf. "Overseas. Away from the disappointment you think you've been to the Avengers."

_This is everything about you that sucks._

He stared at the wall and the ticking clock he couldn't hear. "I wasn't there, Katie."

Her eyes narrowed. "And you won't be if you leave."

He wanted to deny it, wanted to just take the job, and walk out of here with his duffel, be back after he'd cleared his head and maybe forgotten that Natasha was limping and wouldn't have been if he'd just been up high with the Avengers where he was supposed to be instead of in the hospital himself from some stupid altercation with a dog abuser.

"Fine," he said instead.

Fine because when all was said and done, Hawkeye was painfully right.

3

"Bad idea." Kate was vetoing this, even if she had to bring in Captain America himself to back her up.

"Great idea," Clint countered stubbornly with that stupid happy smile on his face that meant he was basking in his own little-boy-style genius and wasn't budging.

"We are not dressing up as Robin Hood and Maid Marian to go to Tony Stark's costume party, and there is absolutely no way in the Nine Realms or however many versions of the multiverse they've supposedly found that I'm taking _you_ as Marian."

"Come on, Katie!"

He had moved to the whining phase. She moved to the crossed arms, 'I am not impressed with you' phase.

"Cut loose. Do something ridiculous. It'll be fun."

She stared him down.

He moved to the little boy sulk phase. "Fine. I'll just go without you."

Kate threw up her hands. "What would anyone think of me going with you like that?"

Clint shrugged. "Who cares what they think? We know what we know. I've done crazier things."

Yes, he had. She had been spared his reputation largely by being the sensible half of the Hawkeye outfit.

"I went to your shindig."

"You aren't going to give up until I say yes, are you?"

Clint grinned, perhaps hoping victory was near.

It wasn't. "No," she said firmly.

Clint's face fell. It did the puppy dog, hangdog, Lucky's got nothing on Clint Barton, you just totally broke my heart look and Kate sighed and growled out, "Fine. You owe me. Like, big time owe me. Like, I shall call in this favor whenever I feel like for absolutely anything I want."

He jumped up and kissed her on the cheek and ignored her, "Ew, Clint, what?" and dumped a green and brown Robin Hood costume in her arms _in her exact size_ she just knew she was going to seriously regret wearing.

"It'll be fun, Kate. I promise."

4

Clint watched very carefully because, "So help me, Clint, I'm not tying this thing for you ever again," and Kate generally meant what she said.

There were many secret skills that Hawkeye had, things he'd picked up in the circus or being married or leading a team of Avengers in one incarnation or another or just through being alive on the planet for about ten years longer than Kate. Somehow he'd managed to scrape by without learning how to actually tie a tie. He'd usually only needed to wear one when he had a girlfriend or wife to insist on it and who was generally willing to tie it for him.

Kate was neither girlfriend nor wife, and she had just made it emphatically clear she was not willing to tie it for him. Again anyway.

So he watched and listened and tried to commit the various steps to memory.

"But you do it just right."

"You mean I don't choke you." She undid the tie— _No. Bad._ —and handed it to him. When he didn't immediately take it, she raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

Reluctantly, Clint took the tie and attempted to repeat her miracle of managing a neat knot that didn't seriously cut off his air flow.

"No, dummy, don't tighten it there." Her fingers were at his throat, nimbly keeping him from early demise by asphyxiation. "There. Try that. Better."

And it was better.

"Hey, Lucky. How do I look?" He grinned at the dog, who wagged his tail and barked appreciation.

Kate shook her head at the both of them.

5

"Don't die on me, Kate. Don't you dare f*** die on me."

Clint's face was a little blurry above hers, and she felt like she couldn't breathe with the way he was pressing down so hard on her stomach.

"Hawkeyes don't die, dummy," she slurred out. Was that her voice? She sounded like she was high.

"Hang on, Katie-Kate. They're almost here."

She wanted to ask who—Avengers, ambulance, _"Who, Clint?"_ —but that thought didn't go very far before she tumbled down into blackness.

* * *

She woke up groggy on what felt like way too many meds with the way the room was swimming.

"You got to stop saving me, Katie. Let me save you for a change." Clint's voice washed over, tired and tight and like he'd been talking to her unconscious body in a hospital bed for way too long.

She rolled her head over on the pillow and heard him audibly catch his breath. "And how many bullets have you taken for someone else?" she demanded crossly.

He looked at her, misery written behind his eyes.

"Hey." She reached out a hand for him, flailing to stop that look.

But he shook his head. "Can't lose you, Kate. I just can't."

"I'm right here, dummy." She caught his hand before he could pull away again. "Hawkeyes don't die, remember?"

They took the shot, took the consequences, and most of all, survived.


End file.
